Expecting a baby when she would be thirty-five, Grace was careful and deliberate about her pregnancy. She was mindful of the discrepancies among the airlines, concerning when it was still safe to fly. Many airlines let you fly up to nine months; that sounded unsafe to Grace. Some international flights only took you up to seven. Grace asked her obstetrician, who was also a skier. No skiing, no flying, no altitude—not after the seventh month, her doctor said. I knew when I would go to Aspen and the Hotel Jerome—when Grace was starting her eighth month, my window of opportunity. I wasn’t thinking about meeting Paul Goode, or wondering if I might like him. I didn’t want to tell him he had a son, or get to know him, but we all want to know where we come from. I wanted to see the Hotel Jerome; I wanted to know more about the ghosts.

In December 1990, a couple of weeks before Christmas, Grace was six months pregnant; she was still working in New York, and driving almost every weekend to Vermont. Grace had seen the new Paul Goode movie, The Other Man, in New York. I hadn’t seen it. The Other Man wouldn’t be playing in Manchester anytime soon, but this didn’t prevent people in Vermont from talking about it. Paul Goode’s wife, Clara Swift, plays his unfaithful wife in The Other Man. In light of my father’s scandalous affair with Juliette Leblanc, his co-star in Argonne, this was the talk of the town. No matter, my thoughts were in Aspen, where I knew I would be going. February 1991 would be Grace’s eighth month. It hadn’t occurred to me that The Other Man might be playing in Aspen long before it came to Manchester, Vermont. I wasn’t interested in seeing more of Paul Goode. I just wanted to see the Hotel Jerome, and know more about the ghosts.

When you see ghosts, they’re just there—they just show up. I don’t know why, but either you see ghosts or you don’t. You can see ghosts better in a movie than you can in a book. If you’ve ever been in an accident, or seen one close up, you will relive it again and again. When you relive an accident, it’s always happening in the present—as if for the first time. Screenplays are written in the present tense, as if what you see is happening for the first time. That’s why what happened to me in Aspen is a movie; it’s always happening, again and again, for the first time. I will always see it as a movie.

45. LOGE PEAK